On November 3, the Denver Film Festival kicked off in the heart of Denver at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. There was a screening of “American Fiction” paired with a pre-screening party.

 On November 4, at the Holiday Theater, musician and director Brad Coorigan premiered his documentary, “Ileana’s Smile.” 

“Ileana’s Smile” is a documentary directed and produced by Coorigan.

“Ileana’s Smile” takes viewers through the lives of Ileana, her sister Mercedes and other family members. Some of the other voices include  Coorigan, his taxi driver Bismark Rocha, and Ileana and Mercedes’ sisters and mother. A majority of the documentary takes place in La Chureca, a waste disposal site in Managua, Nicaragua. The documentary took 15 years to complete, starting with footage from 2007.

La Chureca is the largest open-air landfill in Central America. Over a thousand people lived and worked in the “City of Trash”. In the landfill, residents would make houses and schools and feeding centers from the resources they had in the landfill. They would rewire electrical devices with other uncommon electric devices to have heat, electricity, and entertainment. 

The waste disposal plant was closed down in 2016, moving all of the communities to the other side of town. But, as recently as 2022, people have started to climb back over the wall separating the former La Chureca citizens from the waste plant. La Chureca, despite being turned into a recycling plant, hasn’t been maintained as much as the Nicaraguan government promised. 

The documentary shows the effort, time and energy Coorigan and his colleagues put into La Chureca, the community and people. It highlights some of the important events held such as the Day of Light festival, a music festival started in 2007 to bring awareness to the landfill and its communities.

Ileana’s story is heartbreaking—a light gone too soon in a world that needed her. Her story is important to tell, as Coorigan and Rocha tried hard to get her on healthier paths from a life of drug addiction and prostitution. Both Ileana and her sister also developed AIDs as young teenagers. Ileana was 18 when she passed. Her sister, Mercedes was 17 when she passed. 

The screening started with a musical performance from Coorigan and violinist Tim Snyder. They wrote a song dedicated to Ileana and Ileana’s School of Hope. Ileana’s School of Hope is a school founded in 2018 by Love, Light + Melody, Coorigan’s nonprofit. 

At the end of the screening, there was a post-documentary Q&A with Coorigan, Producer Justin Borgardus and Love, Light + Melody Executive Director Margaret Lebeck. 

Coorigan explained that his introduction to Ileana came after his band Dispatch disbanded. His journey started in 2005.

“My church in Denver at the time invited me down as a musician for a youth rally,” said Coorigan. It was the first time he hired Bismarke as his taxi driver. 

He was only supposed to be in Nicaragua for three days. A few of his friends had also been down there helping with an orphanage. After a few days, Rocha asked Coorigan if he “could show us a place where kids need us more.” Coorigan was confused by this statement from Bismarke, until they entered La Chureca for the first time. 

“…I think my first trip I just froze,” Coorigan recalled. “I think I saw something that overwhelms every sense of my being. I was just trying to roll the windows up and lock the doors…I’d never seen kids, people and trash so commingled.” 

This trip was the first of many for Coorigan. He went back to Managua one month later to visit La Chureca and Bismarke. “I went back 6 times in [probably] about six months.” 

During these trips, he still felt overwhelmed. He would still keep the windows up and the doors locked. But, his life changed permanently on the sixth trip. 

“We were leaving the site and a girl comes up to me on a bike. She was laughing and smiling and she knocked on the window,” Coorigan said. He rolled the window down to make first introduction to Ileana. 

This first introduction to Ileana also introduced Coorigan to Ileana’s family. The following year, he founded Love, Light + Melody to provide resources for the people of La Chureca. He has visited the trash sight monthly for years. “I was invited to be a part of their lives,” he said. 

It was two years after Ilena’s death in 2011 that he started the kickstarter for the documentary. The rest of it is history. 

“I want this [documentary] to be really grassroots. It would be amazing to get a permanent home for it, but I really want to share this at a community level,” said Coorigan. He shared about the process of fundraising and making “Ileana’s Smile.”

Coorigan has multiple goals for Ileana’s Smile. “Goal number one for the film is for viewers to really see Ileana and Mercedes. Second thing is for people to really see underrepresented groups in everyone’s communities. The third is to raise awareness for Ilena’s school for hope.”